Efforts to close the Taliban’s Qatar Office and the puzzled future of the peace process
The Afghan President traveled to Germany last week to attend the Munich Security Conference. Besides delivering his speech in the conference, the Afghan President also met senior officials of various countries, among them the Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs (Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani). In the meeting between Ghani and Sheikh Mohammad, besides other issues, the two sides discussed the issue of the Taliban’s political Office and the Afghan peace process.
Talking to Qatari Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ghani said that “if no positive change occurred in the Taliban’s position until the upcoming spring and summer and they continued violence, sanctions, including the closure of the group’s office in Qatar, must be imposed on them.”
Why did the Qatar Office open in the first place? What it did until now? And what is the future of peace talks? Here we have analyzed these and other similar questions.
Taliban’s Political Office in Qatar
On 30 June 2009, the Taliban captured a US soldier Bow Bridal. The same year and years after that were the bloodiest years for US soldiers. After that the Americans also realized the necessity of the peace talks with the Taliban and added negotiation with the Taliban to their war strategy.
According to the spokesperson of the former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in 1390, the US and the Taliban had reached an agreement to open the Qatar Office; but the US informed the Afghan government only few days after the Second Bonn Conference. [1] According to a source in the Taliban, before the Bonn Conference, head of Taliban’s Qatar Office Tayyeb Agha was present in Germany but, due to Karzai’s opposition, he could not participate in the conference.
On 3 January 2012, the Taliban released a statement about their negotiations with the US. In that statement, the Taliban had stated that they had reached an agreement with Qatar and other involved parties regarding their political office; but they had not declared its opening date. [2] After that statement, the Afghan government opposed the Taliban’s office in Qatar and thus opening the group’s office in Qatar was delayed.
Although, negotiations about the Taliban’s office in Qatar had started after 1389, but it was in 1392 that the Taliban officially opened it. At that time the tenuous relations between the Afghan government and the US and the Afghan Taliban’s rejecting the peace talks with the Afghan government increased the Afghan government’s suspicions about Qatar office.
Therefore, in January 2013, in his speech in the Parliament the Afghan Minister of Foreign Affairs Zalmai Rasoul said that, “Taliban’s office in Qatar is only for peace talks and not for political activities and we will not recognize it as long as the Taliban have not announced their preparation for peace talks with the Afghan government. If an office opens, nobody knows who would talk with who. It faces us with a major challenge. The Taliban say that they do not talk with the Afghan government, then who they talk to, if they talked with anyone other than the Afghan government, then we would have to deal with major challenges.” [3]
In January 2013, when the Afghan President traveled to the US, according to his spokesperson, “the US officials included the issue of Taliban’s Qatar Office in the agenda of bilateral talks.” [4]
Putting some conditions, the Afghan government agreed with opening the Taliban’s Qatar office and thus, on 18 June 2013, the Taliban opened their office in Qatar; which pretty soon, due to the flag and plaque of the Taliban reading “Islamic Emirate”, faced the Afghan government’s opposition, and, on 9 July 2013, the Taliban closed the office.
On the other hand, in this office, differences rose between the Taliban which resulted in resignation of the head of the office Saeed Tayyeb Agha and his several friends.
Evaluation of the Taliban’s political office
Taliban’s Office in Qatar is still unofficial; but the Taliban representatives reside there since 2013 and from there they have extended their relations with the world. Here are the most important activities that the Taliban have fulfilled through this office:
First; its benefits to the Taliban; the Taliban benefited from their office in Qatar in the following areas:
- The Taliban exchanged a US soldier with five Taliban prisoners imprisoned in Guantanamo;
- They released their militants from various countries such as Tajikistan and Russia;
- they attended in international conferences such as Pugwash and raised its voice to the international community;
- Through this office, the Taliban established relations with various countries such as Russia, Iran, China and some other countries and tried to decrease their concerns regarding the group.
- After the formation of the NUG, they tried to show themselves more effective in fight against ISIL than the Afghan government.
- Through this office, the Afghan Taliban tried to contact various Afghan parties and personalities, invite them to Qatar and exchange their opinions with them.
Second; its role in the peace process; regarding the peace process the office did not met the expectations. Through this office, on the one hand, the Taliban negotiated with the US to exchange prisoners and, on the other hand, they paved the way for some confined direct talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban. However, this office has not played any significant role in the official face to face talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban held in Murree, Islamabad.
The probable future of the peace process if the Taliban’s Qatar Office closed
Both the Afghan government and the Taliban have had ambiguous and contradictory policies regarding the peace process. For instance, the Afghan government, on the one hand, prioritizes the peace talks with the Taliban and, on the other hand, it makes decisions that increases suspicions and prolongs war in Afghanistan- such as the Afghan government’s demand to include the Taliban leader Mawlawi Hebattullah’s name in the UN sanction list and now the closure of the Taliban Qatar Office.
The Afghan Taliban, on the one hand, mentions the Qatar Office to be their only address for peace talks and, on the other hand, they do not show willingness for peace talks. Since the opining of the Qatar Office, it has not conducted any official talks with the Afghan government.
On the other hand, given the political activities of the Taliban’s Qatar Office, the Afghan government has reached to the conclusion that this office had done more harm than good to the Afghan government. Because of its diplomacy and the changing geo-politics of the region, the Taliban’s Qatar Office sabotaged some of the Afghan government’s efforts, particularly the Afghan government’s efforts to form a regional consensus and joint struggle against “terrorism”.
Closing the Taliban’s political office, while in the past several years the Taliban has kept saying that it is only address for peace talks, would create obstacles on the way of peace and would delay this process.
The issue is not whether the Office be open or closed but rather the strategic opinions of the two sides. The Afghan government’s opinion regarding conducting peace talks with a foreign party to bring the Taliban to the negotiation table has not reached any conclusion yet and it seems that it will not have desiring outcomes in the future either. Efforts to marginalize the Afghan government in the peace talks and demands of peace talks with parties other than the Afghan government by the Taliban would also be in vain and would rather complicate and prolong the war and would face the peace process with new challenges. Therefore, unless the Afghan government and the Taliban sit around a table, the success of the peace process seems impossible.
The end
[1] See the article written by the spokesperson of the former Afghan President:
[2] See the Taliban’s official statement about the negotiations:
[3] Read more in this report of Azadi Radio:
http://pa.azadiradio.com/a/24813820.html
[4] Read Eimal Faizi’s article in here:
http://www.bbc.com/pashto/interactivity/2013/06/130626_aimal_faizi_on_qatar